Just received the new rules from Placement requiring vendor passes (cost between $750 and $1,500) or full priced, non-refundable entry tickets for each delivery coming to your camp. So having fuel for generators or rental equipment delivered to the camp will cost us another $350 - $750.

This was announced 3 weeks before BM, throwing a monkey wrench into our budget, which messes up our camp planning majorly. It's too late to re-do our budget, or think about yet ANOTHER fundraiser, etc., or change our structure, etc .

They could not have made this choice...6 months ago...or after the event last year...

So some stevedore/teamster has to drive in with a truck full of whatever, and his original intent was not to be a spectator, and he probably needs to get back real quick anyway, his ticket is going to be as much as four times as much as mine.

Jackass wrote:Let the fleecing begin!! Why not just get them a regular ticket?? Do they get in faster with this special pass?

Yes, purchasing a regular ticket is one option - FOR EVERY PERSON, EVERY DELIVERY. We have a delivery with like 4 guys, that's 4 tickets. The vendor pass I guess, it's faster or something, bla bla bla...

Jackass wrote:Let the fleecing begin!! Why not just get them a regular ticket?? Do they get in faster with this special pass?

Yes, purchasing a regular ticket is one option - FOR EVERY PERSON, EVERY DELIVERY. We have a delivery with like 4 guys, that's 4 tickets. The vendor pass I guess, it's faster or something, bla bla bla...

Sounds to me like something the State of California would come up with, also sounds like someones getting a little greedy! That's bullshit, I don't need any deliveries, but for those that do...

Man, it used to be that a vendor left a credit card at the gate. If he wasn't back to claim it in some reasonable period of time, they charged the card for a ticket. Maybe there have been too many problems with that mechanism but this sounds totally unreasonable to me. What are we going to see as a result of this? Vendors dumping cargo in the will call lot?

ADDED:

"They could not have made this choice...6 months ago...or after the event last year..."

Yeah, I hear you. Some camps might have already made arrangements for deliveries on the playa before anything like this came about. This is really going to bite some people in the ass.

BUT, it appears that once a vendor has such a pass, they can make unlimited deliveries to anyone in the city so it looks like the vendors can purchase the ticket themselves and have an unlimited pass in/out of the gate.

Jackass wrote:Let the fleecing begin!! Why not just get them a regular ticket?? Do they get in faster with this special pass?

Yes, purchasing a regular ticket is one option - FOR EVERY PERSON, EVERY DELIVERY. We have a delivery with like 4 guys, that's 4 tickets. The vendor pass I guess, it's faster or something, bla bla bla...

Sounds to me like something the State of California would come up with, also sounds like someones getting a little greedy! That's bullshit, I don't need any deliveries, but for those that do...

Getting that personal rent-a-can just got a bit more spensive

The FFed up part is that our deliveries involve stuff that BMORG supports. A grey water tank! A big rental tent that will help us have more of a community atmosphere, better public space and not just a jumble of tents. The fuel for our generator will enable us to power us and another couple camps - more efficient, less noise, more cooperation, more community.

madmatt wrote:The FFed up part is that our deliveries involve stuff that BMORG supports. A grey water tank! A big rental tent that will help us have more of a community atmosphere, better public space and not just a jumble of tents. The fuel for our generator will enable us to power us and another couple camps - more efficient, less noise, more cooperation, more community.

Yeah. It seems like the way BMORG fixes it's problems is by raising our fees (or vendor fees?) rather than just becoming a nice church like it really should anyway. Just think of what it could do with all that money if it was a real honest-to-god church? JESUS CHRIST.

And yes, it makes it a lot harder to do all the stuff that it takes to really make Burning Man so impressive without huge industrial support! Those "drop in cans" some people complain about really are necessary for a lot of what we do. And delivering a squad of art cars that can't possibly drive on regular roads? Big things that belong on the back of huge flat-bed trucks? Coooome on guys! Hear our prayers!

And not only are the fees utterly, ridiculously, exorbitant, I finally had to ASK. Been waiting patiently for a follow-up to the July 23 Placement email, which stated, "...the [vendor] pass is designed for vendors that have a need for frequent access to the 'outside world', otherwise the ticket option above is still the best bet." But, as far as I can tell, nothing since, and still no distributed or posted information about what the vendor passes actually cost.

Skye2kx wrote:...So I just found out TODAY what the damage will be and, yes, that F's up our carefully crafted budget in a significant way. For ONE in/out delivery.

And now I am pissed.

Try to find out if they are delivering anything else at BM. They may already have one. If they are delivering to another camp, maybe you can share the cost of the ticket or a vendor pass with that camp.

Does anyone else see the natural progression of this ending up with some very few vendors doing the bulk of the deliveries?
If you're sending cargo from New York City do you then switch off to a local company with the credentials?

They really should have given us more warning. And I'm not ahving anythign hauled...

The Lady with a Lamprey

"The powerful are exploiting people, art and ideas, and this leads to us plebes debating how to best ration ice.Man, no wonder they always win....." Lonesomebri